DeathLlama called me at work this morning to warn me of a very dead and decomposing pet cat by our front porch (the warning was so I didn’t freak–but of course, first thing I did when I got home was go look at it). Hidden in with the ivy, she had not been readily visible, and it looks like it’s been several days since her demise. She’s quite, uh, flat.
Saddest of all, she is still wearing her collar and name tag. I do believe I recognize her as one of the stiffer-legged, seemingly geriatric feline residents in the condo complex. She was very sweet, if that was her. The nametag says, I think, “Pinkie” (I didn’t exactly go in for a very close look). I wanted to call the owners, but DeathLlama immediately said HELL no–would you want to see your beloved pet in that maggot-infested, pungent and deflated state? Hmm. Good point. He called Animal Services–apparently, they will come remove the body and contact the owners. (More than likely, it will be tomorrow.)
Yuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Meanwhile, Inigo-kitty is purring contentedly in my lap.
How awful. We had a baby rabbit expire in our hosta this summer, it had been attacked by crows. My childhood cat Misty was quite elderly when she disappeard. She had lived with my parents after I moved out, and my mom told me she went out one day and she never came back. Misty had never strayed too far before and my mom thinks she went someplace quiet to die. My mom is a teacher and some kids from her school said they had found a cat skeleton in an empty lot a few blocks from our house months after Misty left, but no mention of a collar. So I’ll never know what happened to her.
In a word… yes. Yes, yes I would. If my cat had been missing for days, I’d want to know where she was, not later, not tomorrow, but as soon as my sympathetic neighbors discovered her. I’d be pretty upset that Animal Services had been the last to handle her remains, and I think I’d be pretty upset that you took it upon yourself to make the decision of what to do with her.
Then again, that’s me, and you certainly know your neighbors better than I do, and maybe they’d just rather not be bothered.
That’s horrible! One of my cats is named the same as your expired one, and this really depresses me.
I need to go and pet the fat monster.
I don’t know what I would do if someone called and told me my cat had been found, decomposing. I would have liked to have the collar and tag back at least.
White Lightning, what would you do with the cat once your neighbor had informed you? Would you be able to remove it yourself?
Animal Services is basically removing it for us. They’ll contact the owners, and if they want it in a pet cemetary or want the collar and tag, it’ll be taken care of.
I would likely want to see my cat, but again wouldn’t know what to do with the body.
Okay, folks, let me say a few things here. First, Anthracite, there’s no petting this poor thing. Even when I discovered it yesterday morning, it was far beyond anything a person could pet. It’s just plain mangled and gross.
Second, White Lightning… okay, we’ll call you. (You don’t live in West Covina, do you?) We call you and you come over. Then what? Do you bring a couple of bags, scoop the poor thing up, and then put him in your trash can and wait a couple more days for the trash to come? (Which, by the way, is illegal.) Do you leave him there in that terrible state and just get a stick and poke goodbye to him, waiting for Animal Services to collect him? (As I said before, there’s no petting this one…not really any touching, either.) I just didn’t know what to do, besides get the body to the appropriate place as soon as possible.
Look, we don’t even know the neighbors. All I know is how I feel about our own kitties. It would just disturb me to no end to see either of our cats in this condition. Of course I would want to know as soon as possible, but then I think I’d be worse off knowing that I couldn’t really do anything with him. Animal Services has to be the last to handle her remains…I’m sure the homeowner’s assoc. would be a little bent out of shape if anyone burried their pet in the grounds of our complex. I can’t think of what else a person would do with expired cat. I’m not sure this is the best thing to do, but I can’t think of what would be better, especially if it’s one of the elderly folks around here.
i was mowing the lawn, and a group of baby bunnies pooped up to see what that loud noise was when i was about two feet from their hole. it was a power mower, and i couldn’t stop in time.
there were five bunnies. one got grazed by a blade and had it’s abdominal wall sheared out, so it was alive. one was decapitated instantly, and another got a leg cut off, so it crawled a bit, spraying blood. two were unharmed, save for shell-shock.
i went to get a shovel to dispose of the bodies, to nudge the still alive bunnies into a bush, and to put the mortally wounded bunnies out of their misery.
when i got back, one of the bunnies had run off, another was sitting there still (but not dead of a terror-based heart attack, as i thought; just severe shell shock. i nudged it away.) and the dismembered bunny had died, possibly of blood loss. i put the disemboweled bunny out of it’s misery with the shovel and buried them in the garden.
it’s always too vivid and sad when you accidentally hit something cute and furry with a power mower.
i’d be hugging my kitties if i were at home.
But the difference was the fact that it was my girlfriends pet, Pearl. An all white, friendly, independent and sweet kitty. She was an indoor / outdoor cat (mostly outdoor) that came up missing. We had spent several days combing the neighborhood looking for her to no avail.
So I took an afternoon off of work to search on my own.
Something kept drawing me to the house almost directly across the street from where she lives, although I had already searched around and partly under it several times (it is a southern Florida home, wood frame built atop cinder block pilings). I crawled underneath the house, which was vacant and for sale. All the way through, and out the far side without seeing anything, and there was that particular smell, but faint. I did not see anything.
So, while I was on the far side, I kept looking underneath the very front of the house, through the brick retainer, and saw something that I did not want to see. Crawling back under the house again, I went all the way up to the front this time, and she was laying in a depression behind one of the pillars, unnoticeable except from one small region, the one that I just happened to look from.
She had been there for 4 - 5 days at best guess, and had been hit by a car. I don’t even understand how she got to where she was.
The hardest part was calling my lady to tell her that I just found Pearl. And that she could not see her cat due to the complications. It tore me up something terrible. I did the only proper thing that I could do, and buried Pearl in the back yard.
Us too - waited too late in the spring for the first mowing & Mr. Pol was the “lucky” one with the mower. I had to dispose of the lobotomized baby bunny (I think it was still alive, but couldn’t put it out of its misery).
The other one was fine - picked it up with a towel & put it in a empty bucket until the lawn was done.
Then I had to walk in front over the mower & check every inch to make sure there were no more baby bunnies.
You’d think Momma would have learned her lesson after Spooner-dog got into the nests 2 years running.
The first year she actually brought one of them in the house with her - luckily it was still whole, but very floppy. (guess who took care of it?)
The second year we just saw her shaking & tossing something around. When it landed, it twitched…
Our hospital rehabs wildlife. A while back, a baby bunny escaped from his container. We searched everywhere, but couldn’t find him. A few days later we noticed a terrible smell coming from the dog kennel area. The baby bunny had crawled underneath the kennels and fell into the drain that runs along the back. He was quite dead and icky.
Also, the first animal I ever tried to hand raise was a bunny. He didn’t do too good. Luckily for the animals i work with, I’m a much better caretaker now.
Also, and I sick for giggling every time I see the phrase, “Uh, I had a baby bunny experience?”
